


Tastebuds

by CAPSING



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: (But with People), Arachnophobia, Disturbing Themes, Fish are Friends - Not Food, Gen, Graphic Animal Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:05:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4471685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CAPSING/pseuds/CAPSING
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ciel is an acquired taste, and Sebastian finds himself reluctant to actually have a bite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tastebuds

**Author's Note:**

> This morning I've watched [ this amv](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV6gsuVx1cw).  
> ... Whoops.

A meal, Sebastian knows, is a process. 

From picking the ingredients at a bustling crowded market, to building a menu over countless smeared recipies. 

From setting a table (- _mapsplatesforksknivesspoonsteacupsflowers_ -) to the guests you set around it (- _chairscushionstaketheircoatsgreedyfoulthings_ -).

From boiling pots and frying pans to -

 

"You call that a course?"

The Earl is sweating; beads slide down his oily skin, swallowed by his thick, graying mustache. "I'd barely call that an appetizer!"

Sebastian's smile doesn't change, fixed upon his face like a butterfly under a pin.

"This dish is not an appetizer." Sebastian explains as he sets the plates down on a long, empty table. "The purpose of it is not to quell your appetite; it's about the shape, the colours, the texture, the process it puts you through." He picks up the used silverware, which numbers are dwindling as each course comes to an end. "It is cuisine that's meant to stimulate your every sense. Rather than to fill you up quickly, it's meant to satisfy other desires, some dormant - to have your palate undergo a meal that exposes it to something different – not merely using your mouth to process nourishment."

The man snorts in anger, waving his arm - and knocks the loaded serving plate from Sebastian's arm.

He lets it clatter to the floor.

 

☸

 

The man's soul is as revolting as he's imagined it'd be.

The demon slurps every single bit.

 

☸

 

"Kill it!" Ciel orders, voice pitched.

Sebastian regards his victim, hiding in the shadowy upper corner of the wardrobe.

"It's a mother," He says plainly. "She's with children."

"That's was an _order_ , Sebastian!"

He reaches and plucks the spider out of her web, inspecting it closely; out of the corner of his eyes, he's pleased to see Ciel's expression matches the _fear_ that tinges the room, a pleasant vibrating hum in the air.

The spider wiggles helplessly, sinking her teeth forward. They barely pierce through the glove.

 

"Did you know, Young Master?" he muses aloud, "that some spiders let their youngs eat their bodies, after they hatch?" he turns the creature, as if he is truly interested in this negligible speck. "Then they carry them around as they are devoured from within, faithful, devoted right until the moment they perish."

 

It takes all the effort of snuffing a candle.

"Such weird creatures."

Hundreds of legs erupt from between his fingertips, scattering blindly away, their fate already sealed.

 

It's like soda water, sparkling down his throat.

 

☸

 

Ciel hisses, glancing away from a crying lamb moments before the knife slits his esophagus.

"What is it, Young Master?" Sebastian asks sweetly. He bends forwards, tugging Ciel towards him from the shoulder. The people around them are oblivious; they part, like mindless ants encountering a stray pebble. Insignificant forms of flesh with barely silvers of souls; grains of dry rice when Sebastian holds a seasoned, steaming steak under his hand.

"Nothing," Ciel mutters; his lie is delicious, with a tang of bitterness and fright at being caught at his weakness, laced with bright innocence mixed with strong denial, as if he can convince himself his ever-alert butler indeed haven't noticed what caused his plight.

 

 

At dinner, Ciel stares at the roasted ribs, arranged tastefully upon greens and leaves, signed with a signature of a thick twirling sauce.

"Is something wrong, Young Master?" Sebastian inquires. "You've had quite a day. I thought having your favorite dish for dinner would help you with the gloom that seemed to have rubbed on you at the marketplace."

Ciel glares at him. _Anger_ is hot, unlike a fire, different from the sun; it stings and licks both at the same time, circling back and forth, aimless and pointed, contradictional at its very essence.

"I've lost my appetite," the child spits. The heavy chair groans loudly against the stone floor as he stands.

"Draw me a bath, Sebastian. I wish to retire early tonight."

"Of course, Young Master." He agrees easily.

 

Just that night, Sebastian allows himself few precious moments to regard the untouched plate.  

Just that night, briefly, he wonders what the human saw there, that he could not.

 

☸

 

Death, Ciel told him once, has the taste of finality.

 

"It feels strange." Ciel murmurs, watching the puddle of blood sluggishly approaching his pristine, polished boots.

Sebastian agrees; his shell is close to bursting. It never happened in the past, when his part of the contract was finally concluded. He makes an effort to keep his form composed – and while doing so, wonders why it matters to him, now.

"I've thought about this- imagined this moment… for such a long time," Ciel speaks; when did his voice become so deep? Sebastian can not pinpoint the exact time, and it disturbs him – "– but at the same time, I did all I could to –" he stops, and lets the sword drop from his hand.

Sebastian regards the man before him. The contract within his right eye shines, alluring; Sebastian's fingertips feel tight, the back of his left hand blazing beneath a stained glove.

 

"Good bye." Ciel says, simply. The fabric on Sebastian's back _rips_ as his control slips for a moment.

 

 _Good_ , Sebastian thinks.

 

"Was I a good butler, My Lord?" he asks. Ciel smiles and closes his eyes.

 

"Satisfactory."

 

 _Good_ , Sebastian thinks.

When was it last, _before_ , when it was –

 

"Satisfactory?"

 

There's a tremble, a slight thing that disturbs the air around Ciel.

"Sebastian," he says.

 

(Pleads.)

 

_And it's everything._

 

 _Good_ , Sebastian thinks of metal bars and utter misery, as his body resettles into its confinement.

"I'm afraid that just won't do, My Lord." He steps forwards, towards a soul unparalleled, exemplary in its core, ripe and dripping. "You deserve the best, after all."

"Don't play with me," Ciel lacks the anger he poured out in his youth, and without it his voice is bare and naked.

"It's over. This is what you've been waiting for."

They stand together in a cooling puddle of blood next to a corpse that's still warm.

 

Sebastian places his palm on Ciel's cheek, brushing the right eyelid with his thumb; the contract at the back of his hand  _burns_.

Ciel knows _nothing_ about _waiting._

 

"I'm afraid we have no time to waste, My Lord," he smiles, and imagines his stomach churning. "If we stall any more, we'd never make it to dinner."

 

☸

 

"Aren't you hungry?" Ciel asks, not looking at him.

(He never looks at him, at nights like these.)

Sebastian _does_ look.

The moon paints the bedroom in shades of blue; each crinkle in the silken sheets is a wave in a whirlpool spiraling around a drowning man.

The smoke from the candle he blew hours ago still hangs in the air.

The atmosphere is a sprawling spectrum of flares and spikes of feeling, cultivated carefully only to explode and surge and spread to a feeling akin to a constant satisfaction.

 

Sebastian doesn't answer.

 

☸

 

"Aren't you hungry?" Ciel asks; he's tired, but not from his brutal nightmares.

"Not at all, My Lord." Sebastian bares his teeth from his usual post by the window.

Ciel sighs, and the air shifts around his despair to make room for hope.

 

☸

 

" _What is it?_ " Ciel asks, and the emotions pouring into the open air are like glazed honey over sweets. " _Aren't you hungry?_ "

In the moonlight, Ciel's bare neck is pale and soft.

"It seems, My Lord," Sebastian looks at the upper corner of the room, away from any stray light beams given by the stars, where a lone spider weaves its own grave.

 

"That I have lost my appetite."

 

 

☸

 

 

 

(Lies, Sebastian learns, are the truths you wish for.)       

**Author's Note:**

> Sparkling water were invented in 1767. In England. 
> 
> I think now is a good time to mention I haven't actually read the series or watched the show.  
> ... But I still hope Sebastian won't eat him!
> 
> All feedback is much appreciated. <3


End file.
